


Bandages and glimpses

by bblamentation



Category: Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-29
Updated: 2016-01-29
Packaged: 2018-05-16 23:14:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5844745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bblamentation/pseuds/bblamentation
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-mission Steve tends to the wounds of the fellow soldier.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bandages and glimpses

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a birthday gift for a dear friend.

Fingertips touched Bucky’s left cheek; the soft pads were smooth against his rough stubble, warming cold skin into comfort. A press to the back of his neck, so close to his ear, coaxed strained muscles into tilting his head back. Letting him first to move him, even if it was ever so subtly.

Preceding the touch of a cup to dry chapped lips Steve spoke, “Relax.”

Once the water trickled on parted lips, it was too late. The cleanliness of tap water washed the dirt and blood that stained his insides, albeit for a short time before the inevitable cause that the stains were his life. It was as if the bloody fight with the half-bruised man before him had not occurred and they were only children who had played too roughly… At least that was what he expected childhood had been from the few children he had seen.

Steve took the cup from Bucky’s thin lips and positioned his head back on the sofa. Bucky didn’t need the care. Roughness would have been fine but it was a nicety to be held as though he could be injured and he wasn’t pure machine.

From beside the sofa, Steve pulled out the medical box containing bandages. They had paled from the years the building had left them but they were far cleaner than the cloth Steve had ripped in haste to stop the blood flow.

“Hey, move your hand,” Steve asked. Bucky withdrew his hand from the wound and watched as thick hands test the width of the gash with the bandages.

Silence stayed between them low breaths under one another. Both of their gazes concentrated on the working hands slipping from tapping fingers to pulling grips. It seemed as if the soldier’s deftness was a natural gift from the kindness those focused eyes had. Clad in uniform could Steve’s attire hold the need for medical clean ups.

_“Really, you’re bruised again.”_

Bucky started at the voice faintly ringing in his ear. The low exasperation was familiar but it definitely was not the man frowning at him with concern. Bucky passed it off with an “I’m fine.” Though he spoke minimally the need to recall that voice urged him to move his own lips to remember the call. They slipped easily into his voiceless mouth, letting them roll as if it was his own exasperation.

Just as Steve had straightened his arm checking the bandages before he could tighten them in place, Bucky heard that same voice “ _How are you the one to run into trouble?”_ As Steve tightened the bandage around the present wound a slightly more pitched voice half-protested echoed slightly by haze of time, _“Thanks to you.”_

“It should be fine,” Steve said. At the small smile pulling on his lips Bucky could see the ghost of a young face far thinner than the one before him.

_The protruding cheekbones were shadowed in a horrid faded purple but it was the cuts and slashes, through clothing, on the boy’s arm seeping red. Though the self that stared the thinness and hurt churned at the roughness played on his friend, were intent on the bandages wrapping round the deep scratches, on thin arms, and rough grazes, on elbows. Wrapping the openings for blood Bucky could note the grazes were more of ilk to burns in the brutality on skin._

_His bandages were tight but still loose enough to allow Steve to move his arm with ease. As if to test whether his injured arm was working (though the neat bandages already told the answer), Steve trailed a finger from his upper arm down to his palm. Once more he ran his finger back the way but stopped it at the fresh bandages looking into Bucky. “Have you done this right?”_

_“Hm, I wonder,” Bucky’s lips pulled up in a half-smirk. He leaned forward, placing his left hand on Steve’s forearm and brush the back of his hand along his arm to reach the bandages by his elbow. His fingers proceeded to idly brush non-descript patterns on smooth skin, whilst the rest of him edged closer._

_The blonde’s face shifted closer… closer… closer to where breaths could be felt._

_“Thank you,” an appreciation was muttered which soon blended with the lips of the other._

Click.

One blink after the sound of the supplies kit being locked, Bucky found the hard jawline and the thick jugular so vastly different to the young blond he had seen a moment ago, from moments gone. The work on his upper arm had been left and the pumping he had felt earlier had faded. He stroked the work of the neat bandages recalling Steve’s warm hands brushing against his arm with each wrap: the way hands could be gentle.

“I’ve done this to you,” Bucky spoke.

“Don’t apologise,” Steve smiled. “We’ve done–“

“No,” Bucky placed his hand, the one with paled and dirty skin, on Steve’s. “The bandages.”

Steve’s brow pressed together for a second before they raised and blue eyes knew. It was as if those eyes solidified Bucky’s dream as memory; it was not a fake nor something placed by desire of a past.


End file.
